There was only one Indian restaurant within a twenty mile radius that delivered. Peshwari Palace, located in Elton, Massachusetts, proudly proclaimed on their menu that they had 'the best naan in New England' and that they 'made deliveries to towns in the Elton and Mill's Rock area.' After scanning over the menu, and asking my dad what he wanted, I called in our order. The woman who answered the phone, Donna, said it would be over in twenty-five minutes.
"All set?" my dad asked when I reclaimed my seat on the couch.
I nodded. "It'll be here in half an hour."
"Great. I'm starving."
He had unmuted Chopped, and we sat in silence for twenty minutes, watching as someone failed miserably at making a vinaigrette, until his phone rang. He scowled at the screen, but answered it anyway, walking into the kitchen. Two minutes later, he came back into the living room to hand me a ten and a twenty, still on the phone.
"That should be enough, right?" he asked me quietly.
"Yeah, perfect."
He smiled at me, then left again. I heard our back door open and close, distantly, and knew, without having to look, what he was doing; sitting on the edge of our back porch, talking on the phone, making facial expressions as if they person on the other end of the line could see them. Usually, if I needed him, that's where I could find him, unless there was several feet of snow and a hurricane rolling in. His boss, Greg, needed a second – and usually a third – opinion on every decision he made. Once he had called my dad from Ikea, wondering aloud if that particular type of desk would be easy to assemble.
Once thirty minutes had come and gone, I walked over to our front door to wait. Thirty-three minutes after I had called, a beat-up black car pulled into our driveway, and Wyatt stepped out.
It took me a minute to recognize him, even though we'd been working side by side for almost two years. Even though he looked exactly the same as every other day – bronze skin, a thin face, and dark hair that was just long enough to curl underneath his ears – it was hard to place him out of context. It seemed wrong to watch him walk up my driveway, in a black shirt instead of a Franny's polo.
I waited until he was almost at the door before stepping outside, my hands shoved into the pockets of my cutoff shorts. He didn't notice at first, as he readjusted the paper bag tucked under his arm. But when he looked up again, he seemed confused.
"Hey," he said hesitantly.
"Hi Wyatt," I replied, finishing my statement off with a little wave. I immediately regretted it, since Wyatt just looked even more wary of stepping closer.
"It's, uh, twenty-four ten."
"Here, I don't need any change," I said, handing him the two bills I had in my hand. He reached out to take it, and that's when I noticed how round his nails were. Which was a weird thing to notice, but I couldn't help but have flashbacks to the last time I had seen him. All through our late night crossword puzzle, he nibbled on his fingernails, then remembered what I had said, and pulled them away.
Before I realized that asking about it was probably a bad idea, my mouth was already moving. "Did you stop biting your nails?"
"What?" He looked down at his hand. "Oh. Right. Yeah, I did, it's bad for you."
I couldn't help but smile. "I bet the person who told you that is pretty smart."
To my surprise, Wyatt smiled back. Just a small one, but still. Wyatt Gulati. Smiling. "She is," he stated, neatly folding the money I had given him, sliding it into the pocket of his khaki shorts.
I could feel myself turning pink, even though it wasn't much of a compliment. "I didn't know you had another job."
Wyatt shrugged, then pulled my order out from the crook of his elbow, holding it out to me. "My family owns Peshwari Palace. I don't have much of a choice."
"I guess I should have known that."
"I don't know," he said, shrugging again, "it's not like we talk much."
"Oh. Yeah."
"Right."
I took a step backwards, towards the door. Wyatt took a step backwards, towards his car. But, for some reason, that was as far as we went. "We're scheduled together on Friday," I told him.
"Yeah?"
"Yup," I took another step backwards, and so did he. "So, see you then?"
For a long moment, Wyatt just blinked slowly. But then he regained his normal serious expression, nodded, and walked back to his driver's side door. "See you on Friday," he called out, then climbed in. I hugged the food to my chest as he drove away, one hand on the wheel, the other adjusting his rearview mirror.
"Hey!" my dad said enthusiastically when I walked back into the house, shutting our front door behind me. "Food's here."
"Sure thing."
I handed everything over to my dad, who immediately started to pull things from the paper bag. As soon as he uncovered the vegetable pakora, he ripped one apart, sticking half of it in his mouth. I crossed behind him to get into one of the cabinets, finding two plates.
"Did you know that guy?" my dad asked.
"The delivery guy?"
"You two were talking," he clarified.
"We work together. We barely know each other, we're aren't even friends."
We were just two people, who did a crossword puzzle together one time. Where one person got the other to stop their horribly bad habit of biting their nails. Just two people, who worked together, who always met too randomly and too awkwardly to be friends.
***
"You can say whatever you want, January," Frank said, eyes narrowed, "make any excuse you can. But I know, okay? I know this is a personal attack."
I looked up long enough to roll my eyes at him, then looked back down at the chalkboard listing all of Franny's flavors. Usually, it was located on the wall behind the counter, but right now, it was on the ground, wedged underneath my left knee, as I updated the Flavor of the Day. So far, I had only managed to write the word 'peanut.'
"It's not! I promise."
Frank snorted. "Bullshit."
"I don't understand," Rosa piped up from her perch on the counter.
"On Monday – only two days ago – January and I had an in-depth discussion about how nuts in ice cream is the devil's work."
Rosa raised an eyebrow. "This is all about nuts in ice cream?"
"Yes," he said emphatically.
"There are no real peanuts in it," I said, "just peanut butter."
"You say that as if this is a good thing."
"It is. Peanut butter isn't really like peanuts."
Frank stared at me, aghast. "That's like saying strawberry smoothies aren't really like strawberries."
"Peanut butter is more of a nut-derived paste," I said, my voice defensive. "While it does keep the integrity of the peanut, it doesn't share the same texture, and since it is being incorporated into the base ice cream, it has a sweeter taste. Meanwhile, the monkey bread emphasizes –"
"Okay, okay, I get it. I can't argue with your smart-people words."
"I wasn't –"
"You were," Rosa interrupted. "Sometimes, when you talk about ice cream, you slip into this linguistic, technical side of yourself that I don't think you realize is there most of the time. It's really freaky, to be honest."
"And mean," Frank chimed in, "not all of us know the definition of 'integrity' and 'emphasize.'"
"Remember when she complained that her ice cream had a 'gelatinous' texture?"
"Those aren't even big words," I argued. "They have four syllables."
Rosa just laughed, but Frank still looked a little bitter. He went to go say something, but thought better of it, shutting his mouth and leaning back against the counter next to Rosa. In the momentary silence, I managed to write the first three letters of 'monkey,' pausing afterwards to make sure they were even.
"January, your phone just buzzed."
"What does it say?"
It vibrated again before Rosa had a chance to pick it up, typing in my password with one hand. "Martha Wallis," she read, "it says, 'big news' in all caps. Then 'be at Franny's in five.'"
"January, how come I'm not allowed to know your password? I thought we were besties," Frank said.
"Because I don't trust you," I said bluntly.
"Ouch."
"Her passcode is four zero one one," Rosa said. "For the record."
"Hey!"
"It's Frank, if I didn't tell him, he wouldn't stop bugging you about it until he knew."
I finished adding the newest flavor to the chalkboard, picking it up to examine my work. I hung it on the wall, erased a few smudges, and then stepped away, satisfied with my work.
"Nice job," Rosa praised.
The door swung open, and we all turned, expecting to see Martha charging towards us. Instead, there was another woman in the doorway, taking in her surroundings with a scowl on her face. But, even with her sour expression, she was still stunning. The movie star kind of gorgeous, with thick strawberry blonde hair and even thicker eyelashes.
Frank broke out into his customary, flirty smirk. "Hey there, what can I getcha?"
The woman turned, slowly, to face him. "Oh no," she said, her soft voice surprisingly sharp, "no way."
Frank blinked. "Excuse me?"
"Yeah, excuse you. I'm here to get an ice cream, I've been standing here for precisely twelve seconds, and you're already trying to pull the moves on me. No way."
Beside me, Rosa giggled, and on my other side, Frank was standing completely still, his expression slowly shifting to one of complete shock. The woman bit her lip, and then turned to me. "Can I get a scoop of rum raisin, in a waffle cone? Please. And I'm in a hurry."
"Coming right up."
I grabbed a cone from the rack, and quickly located an ice cream scooper. Rosa was carefully trying to stifle her laughter as the woman tapped her foot against the tile, still examining the walls with her eyebrows raised, actively avoiding eye contact with Frank.
I handed over her order. "Three eighty-nine, please."
She fished out her wallet with one hand, examining the contents. "Damn, I have no cash. Is it okay if I give you my card?"
"Yeah, that's fine."
She looked grateful, handing it over with two fingers. Sylvia E Rodstadt was her name, according to the front. I swiped her card, handed it back, and handed her the receipt she needed to sign seconds later. She did, slid it back across the counter, then left.
"I'm in love with her," Frank stated.
"She's way too old for you," Rosa said, "she's definitely in her thirties."
"What? No. Twenty-five. Not a day over twenty-eight," Frank argued.
"Thirty."
"Twenty-five."
"Seventy-two!" Martha interjected happily, making her way over to the counter. "What are we talking about? Something fun, I hope."
"Frank has a crush," I informed her.
"It's not just a crush," Frank corrected, "it's true love."
"Oh! Nice." Even though her enthusiasm hadn't wavered, she said this almost dismissively. "Speaking of true love, I got surf boy's name. And number. And an invitation to his party on Saturday."
"Wait," Rosa held up both her hands, "surfer boy?"
"Apparently he's really cute," I said.
"More than cute, like hot," Martha added, "stunning, gorgeous, beautiful, hot. Do I need to go on, or do you get the idea? Have I mentioned he's hot?"
I laughed. "Only once or twice."
"And you got his number?" Rosa asked.
Martha bit her lip to stop an ecstatic grin from making its way across her face. It did anyway. "Well, first things first, I had to pick up my board today from the surf place. And, like, I'd been swinging by before work every few days to see if he was there, and today he was. So he sees me, right, and he remembers me! He remembered I brought my board in, and he goes out back to get it, and he takes, like forever to ring me up, just so he can talk to me."
Rosa raised her eyebrows, smiling. "Wow."
"I know. And finally, he says, 'well, since you won't have any other reason to come back now, I guess I should give you my number.' So I'm like, yeah, of course, and I hand over my phone so he can put his name and number in." On this, she pulls out the aforementioned phone, still beaming. "And as he's doing it, he's all, 'just a warning, I'm probably going to text you later to invite you to the house party I'm having on Saturday. Bring your friends, but only if they're as pretty as you.'"
Frank, who had started to wipe down the front of the glass case, snorted, but Martha barely looked at him.
"He even took a picture of himself, for his contact," she concludes happily, turning the screen around so we can see it, see surfer boy in all his glory.
It takes a minute for me to realize that I recognize the face on the screen, and for the knot to settle in my throat. In the corner of my eye, I can see Rosa's grin fade.
Jackson Marcus.
"He's ..." Rosa started, letting the rest of her sentence die before it even began. I could feel her looking at me, but I kept my eyes on Martha, whose overjoyed expression had started to falter. There were only two options; tell her, or don't tell her.
"... just like you described him," I finished for Rosa, offering Martha a smile. She returned it.
"Isn't he?" she squealed, delighted. "Now, let me tell you everything we talked about. This is going to take a while, hit me up with one of those chocolate-covered waffle cones, please and thank you."
Rosa turned to the rack behind her, and tossed one to Martha. She gave me one, final, confused look, then asked Martha to, "start from the beginning, we need all the details."
There were only two options; tell Martha that I had a hopeless, embarrassing, stupid crush on the guy she was determined to fall in love with, or don't.
I just hoped that I picked the right one.